On January 12, the SEC filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against two companies (collectively, defendants), alleging that they were involved in the unregistered offer and sale of securities through a crypto asset lending program. According to the complaint, in December 2020, one defendant entered into an agreement with the other defendant to offer customers, including retail investors in the U.S., an opportunity to loan their crypto assets to the defendant in exchange for its “promise to pay interest on those investors’ crypto assets.” The complaint further alleged that in February 2021, the defendants began offering the program to retail investors, which included that there was no minimum investment amount to be eligible to participate, and that investors tendered their crypto assets to one of the defendants acting as the agent to facilitate the transaction. The SEC noted that the defendant deducted an agent fee, sometimes as high as 4.29 percent. The complaint also alleged that the defendant then exercised its discretion in how to use investors’ crypto assets to generate revenue and pay interest to investors. In November 2022, the company announced that it would not allow its investors to withdraw their crypto assets because the company did not have sufficient liquid assets to meet withdrawal requests following volatility in the crypto asset market. These activities violated Section 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act the SEC said. The SEC’s complaint seeks permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties.
